I was talking with a cohort, Al Campbell, earlier today and he told me that hardly a day goes by that a reader doesn’t call him about something pertaining to the our website, about a feature they like, or don’t like, or would like for us to add.
As we spoke he showed me a photo he had just taken of a telephone pole in Stone Harbor Manor which snapped in two due to the high winds. He said that in the past, he would have had to wait a week to get that picture in the paper because he just missed our deadline. By then that particular weather-related photo would no longer be news and would have to be trashed. Now, however, the photo goes right on the Web.
At our monthly all-staff gathering, Preston Gibson announced that our new Web site, introduced just a month ago, is so much more popular with our readers that we now have more traffic on it in two days than we had in a month on our old one.
Meanwhile, on to web radio. Jack Fichter, who has a radio background, told me that we ought to make our news available in audio form on our website. He is now working with Al and my son, Dennis, to get that in the works.
In the meantime, our development team is working overtime on other ideas to integrate the way that we bring the news to you. Our goal is to bring to you in print what is best conveyed in print, and over the web the things that are best communicated that way.
At the New Jersey Press Association, national and regional advertisers are increasingly interested in plac-ing advertising on newspaper Web sites and my son, Benjamin, is participating on a technical team to facili-tate that.
Not only is technology changing, Cape May County is changing. According to a study we commissioned and likewise a study the Borough of Avalon commissioned, people stay in our various tourist communities, but they visit, shop and dine throughout the county.
So, in response to our visitors’ need to know what is available to them throughout the whole county, we are changing our seasonal print publications in 2006.
In this dynamic world, your expectations of us are changing. We are doing our best to keep pace with these changes and exceed your expectations of us.
Regardless of the technologies we employ to serve you, our purpose never changes. Annually we remind you and ourselves of our core purpose, printed here below.
Purpose Statement
of the
Cape May County Herald
The Cape May County Herald’s news pages exist to accurately cover and impartially analyze events and trends, which impact the lives of our readers. We endeavor to report not only events but, where applicable, to give wider focus to the events so as to make our reporting relevant to our readers.
We believe the facts are facts, not points of view. In reporting the facts, independence is essential, as we cannot sacrifice our credibility in order to avoid offending an advertiser, a political figure or others known or unknown. We recognize that the truth is sometimes painful and thus doesn’t always please everyone.
Our editorial coverage exists to filter events through our philosophic and moral screen and then to express our opinion; these expressed opinions are not influenced by our news coverage. The tenets that govern us are based upon our belief that a God given moral com-pass must guide us all.
Art Hall, publisher
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